CM PRESS # 765

CHICAGO CONCERNED THAT GANG SIGNS ARE HIDDEN IN NEW CITY STICKERS

This follows an earlier story we reported on about a picture of a pig being secretly put into police stickers in Vermont.

In topsy turvy Costa Mesa, we aren't so subtle.  We just accept drawings of barbed wire, cans of spray paint and stoned elephants in a design that the city is backing and then we wonder if there are secret messages of good things in this design.

 "Ah, why, er, ah, gosh golly, see, hmmm, the barbed wire, cans of spray paint and stoned elephants show that Costa Mesa is, er, ah, ahem, like hip, man.  See, that's the hidden message. Yes, that's it.  We're a with it, on the edge, modern, youthful and wonderful community and that's what the barbed wire, cans of spray paint and stoned elephants convey, man."
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COSTA MESA CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS PART OF A DRUG CARTEL?

That's what a speaker from Laguna Beach said at the City Council meeting last night. 

His reasoning was that since the City is closing down marijuana clinics, the City Council is forcing people to buy their marijuana from illegal street sources and thus is putting money in the pockets of various drug cartels.

After this speaker finished talking, Mayor Pro Tem Righeimer asked him why he didn't go to his own City Council in Laguna Beach and speak about marijuana there.

Righeimer also asked the speaker  if there were any marijuana clinics in Laguna Beach or Laguna Niguel and other cities close to Laguna Beach and the speaker answered in the negative, and then he unsuccessfully tried to salvage some of his tattered argument by saying that Costa Mesa was losing tax revenue by closing the clinics.

A woman  who also spoke in favor of keeping Costa Mesa's marijuana clinics open said that the Costa Mesa City Council was "forcing" her to go to Santa Ana and places that might be unsafe to buy her marijuana. 

Sigh.  "Forcing" her?

Another woman talked about how much marijuana helped her and how she was apparently able to buy a dildo at one store in Costa Mesa and marijuana at another nearby store. We must have missed something because we're not sure what point she was trying to make.

Now, don't get us wrong, the libertarian streak in us says that the government should not be telling people what plants they can grow or use--after all, the government is just a group of individuals and those individuals have their own biases and world views; so why should those individuals be able to tell other individuals what they can do when they're not harming others and are just pursuing happiness as they themselves believe is right for them?  That's not our idea of freedom.  In our perfect society, the government would butt out of most things and let people do what they want so long as they don't harm others.

However, we also don't like people telling us that Costa Mesans should allow marijuana clinics when other cities don't allow them and when there is unsettled law about the subject and a conflict between federal law and state law that still needs to be resolved.

So, to be clear, we're pleased that some of these folks are fighting for the right to use medical marijuana--because we see it as an individual freedom issue, and we'd like to see them win on this basis and extend individual freedom--but, at the same time, we're not pleased at some of the arguments they're making and the fact that they believe that Costa Mesa must bend to their will when their own cities don't.
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Those are our opinions.  Thanks for reading them.